REVIEW: ‘Babygirl’ Is An Erotic Game Worth Playing

Writer-director Halina Reijn‘s first English-language feature, Bodies Bodies Bodies, was unabashed in its overt satire of Gen Z culture. Her follow-up, Babygirl, is something different entirely. A wickedly erotic game of cat-and-mouse, Babygirl is as irresistibly sexy as it is expansive. Through a 114-minute runtime, Halina Reijn touches on control, primal nature, stagnation, and so much more that it would make one’s head spin if it weren’t anchored by borderline feral turns from Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. In other words, Babygirl is a naughty little firecracker here to blow up any other 2024 film’s take on sex and relationships.

Romy (Kidman) has clawed her way to the top of business, secure in her station as the CEO of a company providing automation to factory work. She lives in an idyllic home life with her two daughters, Isabel (Esther McGregor) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly), and her theatre director husband (Antonio Banderas). Under the surface, Romy is unsatisfied. Lovemaking with her husband has become routine, with Romy slinking off every night to watch pornography and finish the job, so to speak.

The stagnation under the surface comes to a head when Romy meets intern Samuel (Dickinson). After some hesitance, she finds herself under the spell of Samuel. He can please her in ways no one has. Their relationship evolves into light sadomasochism, where their consensual tryst is based on her submitting to his commands. Paradise can’t last forever, as their game of sexual push and pull threatens to spill out into Romy’s home and work life.

A great performance is as essential to storytelling as the script and direction. Boy, howdy, does Nicole Kidman’s performance in Babygirl tell a story. Before Samuel comes into Romy’s life, she holds herself with a poise that feels ready to crack at any moment. Kidman takes on the full weight of living an unfulfilling life. When she’s with Samuel, however, Kidman really gets her moment to shine. In Samuel’s presence, Romy can hardly breathe. She stumbles over words, knocks things over… is it fear? Maybe. Curiosity? Definitely. But the most important thing Kidman communicates about Romy is the complete and total release she has when in his presence.

Harris Dickinson certainly holds up his end of the bargain. He’s all confidence as Samuel, smirking as he has Romy tied up in his web. Interestingly, that confidence doesn’t always hold. Dickinson portrays Samuel as someone prone to the occasional outbursts. Even in the bedroom, he doesn’t seem entirely sure of what he’s doing at times, making it up on the fly. It’s almost part of the charm. Samuel represents a wild youth that Romy is pulled strong into, like a magnet. Whether or not his flippancy is all part of an act to keep Romy on her toes is up to the audience’s interpretation. Regardless, there are enticing layers to peel back in his performance.

Any erotic thriller worth its salt knows that it has to bring it in the sex scene department. Halina Reijn seems to have taken this to heart. Babygirl has some of the steamiest scenes of the year, mostly due to their centering of female pleasure. This is not a film for the audience to ogle at the attractive actors in the nude. Reijn wants us to feel the divine escape, the excitement of doing the wrong thing. Close-ups of Kidman’s face, sweat pouring off the lovers’ bodies, and the animalistic way they move around one another convey the raw sensuality that this immovable object (Romy) meeting an unstoppable force (Samuel) should.

As intriguing as their sexual escapades are, the way they brush up against Romy’s world nearly matches it. There’s a taboo nature to the relationship, namely the age gap, Samuel being Romy’s subordinate, and Romy having a family of her own. What the two are doing could have life-ruining implications for Romy, yet she’s pulled back into it anyway. Babygirl opens up the question: is acting on lust following an uncontrollable urge, or is that the excuse we use because doing the wrong thing can feel so good?

Babygirl is a conversation starter. Halina Reijn forges a dynamic that would make the audience feel guilty to indulge in if it weren’t so inviting. More than any recent film, Babygirl plays with the idea of a forbidden fruit (in this case, a relationship with an intern) as a lightning rod for unleashing hidden desires. In all the avenues it explores, Babygirl never judges its characters, asking the audience instead to ponder their own relationships with sex and repressed desire. Putting that much trust into the viewer and giving them that much to chew on makes Babygirl desirable.

Babygirl releases in theaters nationwide December 25, 2024.